Europe’s exposure to technologies and supply chains it does not control is becoming harder to ignore.

In this episode of This Week in European Tech, Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed and Andrew J Scott of 7percent Ventures look at that problem from several angles.

The discussion starts with US–China tensions over rare earths before turning to Europe’s own reliance on Chinese refining capacity and how difficult it would be to rebuild more of that industrial capability closer to home.

They also examine the intensifying AI price war. OpenAI and Anthropic are making frontier intelligence cheaper, while open-source models are gaining ground.

But lower prices do not necessarily make enterprises more independent: once models are integrated deeply into workflows, switching providers can carry its own technical, legal and operational costs.

The conversation then moves to autonomous AI agents, what happens when they behave in unexpected ways and how Europe is beginning to define liability when AI-powered products cause harm.

They close with signs of movement elsewhere in the European ecosystem, from semiconductor investment to pension capital entering venture.

Highlights

What US–China rare-earth tensions reveal about Europe’s own dependencies
Why refining capacity matters as much as access to raw materials
How the AI price war is changing enterprise buying decisions
Why cheaper models may still leave companies locked into providers
How open-source AI is gaining ground inside enterprises
What autonomous agents mean for security and accountability
How Europe is approaching AI product liability
Why recent semiconductor and pension-fund moves matter for European tech

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